Israel To Require Arab Citizens To Declare Loyalty?

By Author: Adam Anders
Total Articles: 41
Comment this article

Israel's Israel Beitenu party, which is the second biggest party in the govt after the Likud, ran on a platform of repealing Israeli citizenship from anyone

who doesn't make a pledge of fidelity to the State of Israel.

This week the Israeli cupboard voted to reject that offer.

There had been never much doubt that the offer would be thrown

out. The Likud party never supported it, in fact none of the practical parties

supported it. Israel Beitenu ran on a populist platform intended to stir up the

population, but any party that's use to being in power knows how threatening

of a step this measure would've been.

If the offer were made into law it positively would

have sparked exceptional disturbance and backlash from

Israel's Arab citizens, who are Palestinians who remained in Israel after the

war of 1948. While they are overwhelmingly law-abiding and co-

operative with Israelis, their faithfulness is to

their Palestinian roots and Palestinian brethren living under occupation. Any attempt tp

disconnect them from their ...
... natural fidelity would have sparked

shock.

as well as creating conflict and violence, the

suggestion would be completely at

odds with Israel's claims of being a democracy. No democracy that I know

of legally requries its voters to promise their fidelity.

Liberty of thought and liberty of expression are central to any democracy.

As much as it contradicts Israel's definition as a Jewish state and its laws that give

preference to Jews, Netanyahu often pays lip service to democracy and I

think he really believes in it ( though it requires a

back seat to Jewish patriotism ), so he knew the threat this

proposal would pose to Israel's standing as a free country.

And thirdly, this suggestion was dangerous to Israel because

the majority of Israelis see hassidic Jews as disloyal to the state. Hassidic Jews may

accept Israel and live in Israel, but they are not Zionists and

their loyalty is to God alone. For the main part they avoid

military service and countrywide service, and many live off of

presidency support checks while not studying the Bible instead of working. If an oath of faithfulness were needed

of Israeli Arabs, many Israelis would also demand such an oath from Hassidic Jews. This would

cause religious strain, in-fighting among

Jews, and an entire lot of headaches for Israeli executives

who are normally held hostage by ultraorthodox parties. The Israeli

presidency wants to prevent this situation at any

price.

So that the offer never truly had an opportunity of being accept by the cabinet. But nevertheless, the straightforward fact that a party making such an offer received an enormous number of votes is unsettling for Israeli Arabs and liberal Israeli Jews. Let's hope the pragmatism and a want need to coexist will rule, instead of increasing patriotism and mutual suspicion.
Get a Middle East political map collection and other Middle East related resources at Printable Maps.